How Do You Hand a 4K PNG to a Client?

Hand the client a folder, not a lone attachment. Put the 3840x2160 sRGB PNG in an originals directory, put a smaller preview beside it, write a five-line readme, and send a transfer link. A 3 to 18 MB PNG will bounce on many corporate mail servers. Even when it does not bounce, Outlook will quietly downsample it and the client will swear you sent a blurry file.

This page is the packing list. The license is the rights page. How to send a large PNG is the pipe. Do not mix the three.

Name the files so a stranger can sort them

Assume the person who opens the zip is not you. They are a producer on a Friday with three decks due. Filenames do the briefing.

Use this shape:

acme-rebrand-2026-08/
  00_readme.txt
  01_preview/
    neon-grid-1920-preview.jpg
  02_original/
    neon-grid-3840x2160-srgb.png
  03_working/
    neon-grid-slide-fill.psd

Rules that save arguments:

• Width, height and color space go in the master name. neon-grid-3840x2160-srgb.png cannot be confused with a 1920 preview.
• The preview is a JPEG or a 1920 WebP at 150 to 400 KB, sRGB, no fancy profile. It is for Slack and email. It is not for print.
• Never put the word final on two files. If you must, date it: final-2026-08-17.
• Keep the archive asset id in the readme, not in the client-facing name, unless they asked for traceability.
• If you also made a CMYK TIFF for a printer, it lives in 04_print/ and says so in the name. It is not "the PNG."

00_readme.txt can be short:

• What the file is: 3840x2160, 8-bit PNG, sRGB IEC61966-2.1.
• What it is for: slide fill, mockup, or print up to the inch budget.
• What it is not: a logo, an exclusive, or a file they may upload to another stock site.
• Rights: link the live license page. Do not paste the whole text.
• Optional courtesy credit: only if they asked. See attribution.

If the job used a presentation plate or a HUD plate, say that in the readme so the next designer can find cousins on the tag list.

How the packet actually travels

Do not attach 02_original to an email. Gmail's limit is 25 MB for the whole message. Many Microsoft 365 tenants sit at 10 or 20 MB. A single busy plate can be 14 MB. Two plates plus a PSD is a bounce.

Use one of these, in this order of boring reliability:

• The client's own SharePoint or Drive folder, if they have one. You upload; they already have access control.
• Google Drive or Dropbox with a link that requires the client's domain, not "anyone with the link," if the deck is confidential.
• WeTransfer or a similar one-shot transfer for a public-ish campaign asset. Set the expiry and put the expiry date in the email.
• A zip only if you are bundling preview plus original plus readme. Zip does not shrink a PNG much. It is a wrapper, not a compression step.

The email itself carries the preview JPEG, the link, the expiry, and the checksum if you are the kind of shop that does that. SHA-256 of the master in the readme stops a future "this isn't what you sent" argument.

Tell them which file to place in the deck. Producers will grab the first picture they see. If 01_preview is listed first, say in bold in the email: "Place the file in 02_original. The JPEG is a preview."

If they need to put the still on a website, do not make them ship the PNG. You either add a 03_web/ WebP yourself using the banding notes, or you write in the readme that web export is their next step. A 12 MB PNG hero is a bug.

If they ask for motion, they are asking for a different product. Point them at Unique Live Wallpaper and keep the static master in 02_original. Do not rename a video to look like the PNG.

After they confirm download, snapshot the folder into your own client-out/ archive. Jobs come back six months later with "send that neon one again." Your local catalog is how you still have it after the WeTransfer link dies.

If the client is the kind of company that blocks file hosts, you are now in IT-ticket territory. Ask them which inbound path is approved before you burn an afternoon on a bounce loop. The large-file page lists the size numbers to put in that ticket.